


no need to remind me what death leaves behind me

by nikkiRA



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Gansey is a good friend, Implied Past Child Abuse, M/M, ronan swears a lot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-01
Updated: 2016-05-01
Packaged: 2018-06-05 15:30:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6710779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nikkiRA/pseuds/nikkiRA
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“My father died,” he says. “Heart attack.”</p><p>“Oh,” Ronan says.</p><p>“Yeah. I’m here for the funeral.”</p><p>“Oh.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	no need to remind me what death leaves behind me

**Author's Note:**

> title from 'what death leaves behind' by los campesinos!
> 
> and look i know robert parrish was probably too young to die but idc because we don't know his age and he drank a lot and also he's an asshole so i don't care

“Hi,” Ronan says with a grin when Adam shows up. “You’re not supposed to be back yet.” He drags Adam to him and kisses him. Adam gently pulls away.

“Ronan,” he says. Denied Adam’s lips, Ronan turns his attention to Adam’s jaw. Adam shouldn’t be surprised, since it’s October and he wasn’t supposed to be back until mid-December. He revels in the feel of Ronan’s hands on him for a few moments before pushing him away.

“Ronan,” he says once again. Ronan pulls away, but he does lace his fingers with Adam’s.

“What are you doing here, Parrish?” He asks. Adam sighs and steels himself.

“My father died,” he says. “Heart attack.”

“Oh,” Ronan says. “Are you okay?” He says, slowly. Adam notices the wording; Ronan does not give any of the condolences expected after the death of a family member. There is no _I’m sorry._ Just concern for Adam.

“Yeah,” Adam says, which is not a lie. “I’m here for the funeral.”

As he had expected, Ronan shifts away. “Oh.”

“Don’t say it like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like you’re angry at me.”

“I just don’t understand –”

“Ronan.”

“Why you’re going. Unless it’s to spit on his grave.”

“ _Ronan.”_

“What?”

“He is my _father.”_

“If that’s what you want to call it.”

Adam lets out an angry noise. “Whatever, okay, I don’t have time for this, I’m going to be late.”

“God fucking forbid.”

Adam ignores this, taking his bag upstairs and changing into his suit. When he goes back downstairs Ronan is sitting in front of the television watching some show in what Adam thinks might be German. He stands and watches the back of Ronan’s head for a minute before turning around to leave.

“Don’t go,” Ronan says suddenly. He stands up and walks over to where Adam is standing. “He doesn’t deserve it. Stay here.” He presses his lips to Adam’s deaf ear, which might be sweet, but might also be Ronan subtly reminding him of what his father had done. As if Adam had forgotten.

He can’t deny that this isn’t a tempting offer. But still, this is something he has to do, and he needs Ronan to understand that. `

“Ronan –”

“Stop saying my name like that.”

“You don’t get it.” He is getting angry, and he doesn’t want to fucking deal with this, and he needs to _go._

“You’re right, I _don’t._ What the fuck do you owe him?”

“It’s not that I owe him anything, Ronan, I don’t owe him a damn thing and I know that, but he was still my father.”

“ _That_ was not a fucking father, Adam.”

He snaps. He’s having a hard enough time with this as it is, he doesn’t need Ronan doing this. Because the thing is he knows Ronan is right. And he hates that he is still here, back in this town he swore he'd leave behind and he shouldn't be here, shouldn't give his father the satisfaction of thinking Adam was mourning him, but every time he thinks he's gotten Robert Parrish out of his system he drags him back. It's like he can never really leave the trailer park. 

He is angry at himself and he is angry at his dead father and he takes it out on Ronan.

“And how the fuck would _you_ know, Lynch? What’s a good father to you? Would my father be better if he was chronically absent? If he was off making deals with good upstanding people like Colin fucking Greenmantle? What if he had dreamt my mother, would that be better? Or maybe you would prefer it if he kept me in the dark about the kind of powers I have, huh? Telling me jack shit so I’m forced to learn from some drug addicted asshole –”

“Enough –”

“How to control something like that before drug addicted asshole inevitably crashes and burns and –”

“ _ADAM.”_

He cuts off, breathing heavy, and he comes back to himself. He stares in horror at Ronan, stares as the words, his words, bounce off of him and fall on the floor, separating them. A chasm of words Adam didn’t mean.

“Ronan,” he says, but it’s too late.

“Tell your dad I say hi, Parrish,” he says, shoving past Adam. Adam closes his eyes and hears Ronan’s car squeal away shortly after.

“Fuck,” he mutters.

The last thing he wants to do now is go to his fucking father’s fucking funeral, but he takes a breath and leaves, trying not to think of the look on Ronan’s face.

* * *

When he arrives he looks for his mother and finds Gansey instead.

“Gansey?” He says in disbelief. Gansey comes up to him and lightly touches his shoulder.

“Hey. I heard what happened. I wanted to be here.”

“But –” Adam is still having a hard time with the fact that Gansey is here. “School.”

“I took a plane,” he says with a shrug, as if this was No Big Deal. “I figured you would appreciate the company.”

And maybe it wouldn’t have happened if it hadn’t been for what just happened, but Adam throws his arms around Gansey and hugs him tightly. Gansey is caught momentarily off guard, before he pats Adam’s back comfortingly.

“I didn’t think your father’s death would impact you this much.”

“I don’t give a shit about my father’s death,” he says, letting go of Gansey. “I fucked up,” he says. “I –”

“Adam?” He turns to see his mother walking up to him. He doesn’t expect her to hug him, but she does. “I’m happy you’re here.”

Adam just nods. To be honest his mind isn’t anywhere near his father’s funeral; it is back at the Barns, watching Ronan’s hurt face as Adam’s words pierced his skin.

The funeral is, funnily enough, at St. Agnes’, despite the fact that the only time Robert Parrish had ever said the word ‘God’ was followed immediately by ‘damnit.’ If Adam were in a better mood he might find it amusing that his father is being laid to rest in the place where Adam used to regularly fuck his boyfriend, but right now he can’t think of Ronan without feeling guilty.

He sits up front with his mother. Gansey looks like he is unsure where he should sit, but Adam drags him down to sit beside him. He doesn’t want to do this without Gansey.

Some people stare at him. At Robert Parrish’s ungrateful son, who thought he was better than everyone else here, with his rich friends and his rich boyfriend and his Ivy League education. Gansey garners looks, as well; Adam, at least, knows how to blend in with these people, but Gansey couldn’t if he tried.

At least, Adam thinks wryly, he isn’t wearing his boat shoes.

He barely listens to the eulogy. He didn’t even think priests would do these for people who didn’t attend their church, but he’s pretty sure his father had been baptized, so maybe that was why. The priest says something about how sad it was to see a life struck down of someone so young, and Adam barely resists rolling his eyes. _Funny what alcohol will do to you._

Gansey’s knee rests against his. On the other side of him, his mother sits, dry eyed, hands clasped tightly in her lap.

Adam thinks about his father, about the damage he had done, not just to him, but to the woman sitting beside him, too.

Maybe all a Parrish can do is burn down everything they touch.

* * *

When they lower the coffin into the grave, he can’t help but think about what Ronan had said. _Unless it’s to spit on his grave._

He wishes, more than anything, that Ronan were here, but even if they hadn’t fought he would have never asked Ronan to come. Both for Ronan’s sake and the sake of his mother.

The rest of the people filter out, Robert Parrish’s co-workers and friends from the trailer park. Eventually the only people standing around the grave are Adam and his mother, with Gansey standing a little bit behind them.

“He loved you, you know,” she says suddenly. Adam snorts.

“Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Act like now that he’s dead we have to speak well of him.”

“It was true, Adam.”

“He hated me, Mom. Please don’t pretend any different.”

“Just because he may not have liked the path you went down –”

“What path is that? Aglionby? College? Did he have more of a problem with the fact that I was dating a guy or that I was dating the guy who punched him?”

“Adam,” she scolds. “Be respectful.”

“Why?”

His mother looks back at Gansey. “Could you –”

“No, Gansey stays.”

His mother sighs. “Your father showed love differently than most people do.”

“That might be a bit of an understatement, although I might have misheard you, since I’m deaf in one ear.”

“I am not going to have this discussion if you are going to be like that.”

“What discussion are we having? The _you don’t have to like someone to love them_ discussion? Because I’m not interested.” He thinks, suddenly, of his first kiss with Ronan. “Do you remember him telling you he regretted the second he squirted me into you?”

She makes a face. “Don’t be vulgar.”

“Those were his words, Mom. I was a child when I heard that. How can you tell me that he loved me when I’ve been living with that over my head since I was a kid? Stop making excuses for him. I tried, remember? I tried to establish some kind of relationship with you. You weren’t interested.”

“I tell everyone I meet about you. I tell them how smart you are. That you were offered scholarships to the best schools in the country.”

He just looks at her.

“And I know that’s not enough. And I know I was never good enough –”

“I didn’t you need you to be good enough,” he says. “But I would have liked for you to try.”

His mother looks at him sadly. “I don’t know who I am without him.”

“Call me when you figure it out,” he says softly, kissing her briefly on the cheek before turning away. She doesn’t call him back. He walks to where Gansey is standing and together they walk back to where they are both parked.

“Ronan was right,” he mutters. “I never should have come.”

“Ronan doesn’t understand your relationship with your parents,” Gansey says. “And neither do I, to be honest. But he can be a little overprotective of the people he cares about.”

“Another understatement,” he says. He leans against the Pig and crosses his arms. Gansey stands beside him and waits. “I’m really, really happy you came, Gansey.”

“I knew Ronan wouldn’t come,” Gansey says. “I didn’t want you to do this alone.”

Adam has always, always believed that he didn’t deserve his friends.

“How’s Blue?”

“Adam.”

He starts unknotting his tie to give himself something to do with his hands. “I fucked up. Big. And I don’t know how to go back from it, and I don’t know if he’ll forgive me, and I don’t even know if I’m going to be able to _look_ at him because of what I did.”

“What did you do?”

“He was angry that I was going to my father’s funeral, and he said he wasn’t a father, which, fuck, he’s _right,_ but I was already so fucked up about going back that I snapped on him and I told him his father wasn’t much better, and I just kept on and on, tearing apart his dad, and God, Gansey, you should have seen his fucking _face._ ”

Gansey is silent for so long that eventually Adam looks over. He is rubbing his bottom lip and his gaze is far away.

“Gansey?”

“Look,” he says finally. “I’m not going to say it wasn’t bad –” Adam swears – “but I don’t think he’s going to end a four year relationship because of it.”

“You know how Ronan is about his dad.”

“Yeah, but I also know how Ronan is about _you.”_

Adam looks away.

“I’m staying with Blue’s mother for the night. If – I don’t know, if things get bad you can always head over there. I’ll try to stop by before I leave to see Ronan.”

“Thank you,” Adam whispers. Gansey holds out his fist, and Adam laughs. “How long are we going to keep doing this?”

“Until the day one of us dies.”

“Technically you already have. Twice.”

Gansey just smiles at him. Adam bumps his fist and then heads to his car.

He plays Ronan’s shitty music the whole ride home.

* * *

When he gets back to the Barns he checks the downstairs before checking the upstairs rooms. Ronan isn’t in any of them, but his car had been there. He finds Opal, who had been curled up under Ronan’s bed, and at his unanswered question she points up. Adam makes a frustrated noise and heads into Matthew’s room, sticking his head out the window and yelling in the direction of the roof.

“Ronan. Come down and talk to me. Please.”

Ronan does not answer, and Adam swears, shrugging off his suit jacket and climbing onto the sill. Ronan was taller than him and never had any trouble heading up here, but Adam has to stretch to reach the edge of the roof. He scrabbles up awkwardly and sits down beside Ronan, panting slightly.

“Couldn’t you have gone somewhere easier for me to access?”

“Maybe that was the point.”

Adam rubs nonexistent dirt off his pants. “I’m sorry, Ronan. I didn’t mean it, and it was shitty of me to say, but I – you think I don’t know my father was an asshole? That he wasn’t a proper father? I know that. And I was having a hard enough time as it was reconciling that with the fact that he was still my father and he’s _dead,_ now, and that’s not an excuse for what I said to you but sometimes your hatred for my father gets in the way of your ability to see things from my point of view. I know you've always wanted me to completely cut myself off from them but it isn't as simple as you think." He takes a deep breath after this and tries to figure out when the fuck he had gotten so good at communication.

Beside him, Ronan leans back on his hands. And then he says something Adam never expected him to say.

“You were right.”

“About what?”

“About my father.”

“Ronan –”

“No, listen. I know my father wasn’t who I hold him up to be. And maybe if he was still alive I would be able to accept that, but he’s not, and if I don’t think of him the way I do then I’ll just resent him and I _can’t_ do that, I can’t. So I push all the anger I should have for him on Declan. What I’m trying to say is I guess I should be more understanding of having fucking complicated relationships with your dead father.”

Sitting up there, in a suit he had bought a few years ago that was actually nice, looking up at the stars and trying to work up the courage to take Ronan’s hand, Adam is suddenly aware of how different life was now. Of how different the world looks when you’re 22 and about to graduate college with honours compared to life when he was 18 and afraid and making deals with magical forests. When he was 18 and hating himself and waiting for the day he killed his best friend and he didn’t know if he wanted to punch Ronan Lynch or kiss him. He tries to imagine telling 18 year old Adam that in the near future he was going to be sitting on a roof with Ronan Lynch, who he has been dating for more than four fucking years, having an actual conversation that didn’t exist solely of swear words and cussing each other out.

Magical forests and dream things, sure – but that might have been too much for him to believe.

“Your father loved you,” he says now. “No matter what else happened, he loved you. I shouldn’t have said what I did about him. I should never have compared him to mine.”

“I’m sorry you had to do that alone.”

“I wasn’t,” he says, with what is almost a smile. “Gansey was there.”

“ _Gansey?”_

Adam nods. “Gansey.”

Ronan shakes his head. “Fucking Gansey,” he mutters, and now Adam _is_ smiling slightly. Ronan takes his hand.

“Truce?” Adam asks. Ronan nods. “Okay, good. Can we please get off this fucking roof now? It’s cold.”

“Not my fault you took your jacket off before climbing up here," he says, leering at him.

“Do not give me that look.”

“What look?”

“That look that says you want to have sex on the roof. I’m not having sex on the roof.”

“Are you saying I have a look that specifically means I want to fuck on a roof?”

“We’re not having sex on the roof,” he repeats.

“You’re so boring, Parrish.”

“Somebody has to be, or who knows how many limbs you would have lost by now.”

Ronan presses a kiss to his ear and Adam leans back into him. He looks up at the stars and he thinks about his parents and he thinks about Gansey and he thinks about the warm body behind him and he thinks, _maybe I’m not going to fuck this up after all._

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr @pipermcgay


End file.
